China imposed a ban on the import of e-waste in 2002, this has been a major trigger for India to emerge as one of the largest dumping grounds of electronic waste for the developed world. Once the electronic equipment, mostly computers, turns obsolete in the West, they are exported as e-waste into the South Asian market, mostly to countries like India and Pakistan. A large number of workers, work in this recycling industry, extracting useful metals from electronic waste or e-waste, are putting both their health and the environment to great risk. Activists estimate that 300,000 to 400,000 tons of electronics collected for recycling in the US each year which ends up overseas mostly in South Asian Junk Market.
Most Americans think they are helping the earth when they recycle their old computers, televisions and cell phones. But little do they know that they are a contributing partner to an unholy global trade in electronic trash. The business of waste treatment goes well beyond these local agents spiraling into a network of smugglers, petty traders, and unorganized workers .
Workers here extract copper, iron, gold and brass from these scraps, break the printed circuit boards into small pieces and send them back to make money. These junkyard workers are paid daily wage of about 100 to 150 Indian rupees, depending on their workload. These workers are just a small fraction of a huge population that is a part of this illegal but flourishing trade. It is the worker who bears the brunt by compromising his health to earn his bread.
The Basel Convention was formulated to promote cleaner technology and ban import of toxic waste, including obsolete computers. India ratified this convention in 1990. Despite this, developing countries have been importing computer scrap from the US, Singapore, Malaysia, the Middle East and Belgium. Absence of proper legislation and proper technology to scan imports has seen increased import of hazardous e-waste masquerading as mixed waste or plastic scrap. There are also cases where obsolete junk comes in as charity or donations to schools and educational institutions. Exporting countries justify it, stating they are providing some form of employment to developing countries.
The governments track international trade across the world using a harmonised system of codes called the international trade classification codes. These are eight digit numbers that are given to all commodities. Cow dung has a number, horse manure has a number, zinc, ash has a number, but unfortunately e-waste does not have a number. So when computer scrap comes into a country, it is either clubbed under a larger grouping like the plastic scrap or mixed plastic waste or thing that have an Indian Trade Classification based on Harmonized System [ITC (HS)] code. As a result, the assessing officer at the concerned port with the customs is unable to distinguish the electronic scrap consignment. He would have to open every container to find out. Basel Convention recognizes the e-waste as a hazardous waste owing to the contaminants in it. There is no clear way by which the importing-exporting country governments can exercise a check on the movement of electronic scrap. Nobody has moved in the Basel Convention asking for a specialized code. So, as a result, though there is a lot of talk about this, there is no way actually to check this menace. The scrap dealers claim that sometimes they themselves are also not aware of what their cargo shipment might contain since the codes may differ from plastics to metal or even animal wastes.
The problem could get worse. More than 2 million tons of old electronics discarded annually by Americans goes to US landfills, according to US Environmental Protection Agency data. But a s growing number of US states are banning such waste from landfills, the recycling stream has begun to circulate more of obsolete junk to third world countries in the name of charities and mixed plastic waste.
Unless countries like India adopts China’s strategy of stringent trade regulations on e-waste, either by organizing the recycling sector or by advocating environmentally sound technologies, these nation could be facing a serious environmental crisis.
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